


The Mortifying Ordeal of Soft Furnishings

by juliet



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Comfort, Cushions, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Nesting, Oral Sex, Sex, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:20:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22405603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliet/pseuds/juliet
Summary: The worst thing in a whole panoply of worst things was that he mostly just really wanted to sit down on the sofa — the comfy sofa! He had a comfy sofa, what was his life coming to — and let Aziraphale stroke his hair.“Oh,” Aziraphale said, suddenly stopping dead. “Crowley.” His tone sounded completely different now. Worried? Sympathetic? Something? “Crowley. My dear. You’ve finally started making a home for yourself.”Whatdoyou do after the Apocalypse doesn't happen; when you're suddenly unemployed, spending a lot more time with your hereditary adversary, and avoiding a whole lot of feelings? Manifesting cushions is probably a bad sign...
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 174
Kudos: 1106
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019, Hot Omens, Most Favs





	The Mortifying Ordeal of Soft Furnishings

Crowley preferred not to think about how long he’d been pining. It was a while. It had become just part of the background of his life, not something he bothered to think about all that often. Tempt; laze; nap; think about Aziraphale. 

Pining probably wasn’t the right word. Demons didn’t pine. But he wasn’t particularly keen on any of the other words that were available. Lust was the only one that was safe, but even Crowley had to admit to himself that this had gone past simple lust a long time ago. 

There definitely weren’t any other safe words. 

The thing was, for a long time, whatever Aziraphale might have said about it, Crowley had known that Aziraphale cared about him too. What Aziraphale had said at the bandstand had cut so sharply not because he believed the stupid angel, but because Aziraphale would rather lie than risk going against his supervisors, and that made Crowley — furious, perhaps, that was a word he might use. But he’d known it wasn’t true, and everything afterwards had confirmed it. 

Crowley no longer doubted that Aziraphale and he were on their own side. But that didn’t mean, never had meant, that Aziraphale cared in the same way as Crowley, or wanted the same things. Which was fine. Perfectly fine. They were on their side. They were together, in the ways that mattered. And if Crowley might still be pining a little after…other possibilities, that was normal. He was used to it. 

The problem was that something had changed. 

Part of it was a sort of gnawing unease that he couldn’t put his finger on. It felt a bit like when needing to shed his skin, or when his wings needed grooming. But he wasn’t a snake at the moment, and he kept his wings perfectly tidy, thank you. He wondered briefly if it had something to do with the fact that he was now wholly estranged from Hell; but that was ridiculous. He’d been avoiding Hell for centuries. He was nothing but relieved to be finally done with them. 

The more identifiable change wasn’t in him, it was in Aziraphale. For a very long time now, Crowley had known, and enjoyed, that Aziraphale was willing to relax around him and let go of some of his buttoned-up tension. He felt a tiny surge of happiness every time he saw Aziraphale slouch slightly in his chair when the two of them were busily putting away a few glasses of wine. It spoke to him of comfort; and he always wanted Aziraphale to be comfortable. 

The change since the not-Apocalpyse wasn’t at all obvious. If Crowley hadn’t been doing whatever he was doing that wasn’t pining, he probably wouldn’t even have noticed. Aziraphale had always kept a certain amount of physical distance between them, before; not much, just enough that they very rarely touched. Now, suddenly, he was closer. He touched Crowley on the arm to emphasise a point. He stood next to him, shoulders brushing, to point something out in one of his beloved books. He leant in over the table when they were out to dinner. 

It was unsettling. And Crowley, being a demon -- he might be permanently detached from Hell now, but he was still a demon -- knew all about unsettling. Unsettling, rather like spooky, he leaned right into. And yet, because it was Aziraphale, he couldn’t. It made him the wrong sort of uncomfortable. Worried, maybe. Uncertain. He didn’t know what it _meant_ , and he didn’t understand what Aziraphale was up to. It couldn’t be the thing Crowley would mean, when he found himself leaning towards Aziraphale over dinner; because if Aziraphale had wanted that, he would, surely, have done something about it immediately after the not-Apocalypse. Which was fine. But. 

Crowley being Crowley, there was a limit to how long he was going to go without starting to ask some questions. He couldn’t ask the question he really wanted to — he’d been avoiding that for somewhere between one and six thousand years, depending on how you counted it — but he could ask other questions. Questions that might give him a bit more of a pointer. 

“Have you thought at all,” he asked Aziraphale one evening, a couple of glasses of wine down, slouched across the sofa in the bookshop, “about what you want to do with yourself now?” He’d been going to say ‘we’, ‘what _we_ want to do with ourselves’, and he’d bottled it at the last minute. 

“Hmm?” Aziraphale frowned at him from his shabby armchair, topping up his own glass and waving the bottle interrogatively at Crowley. 

Crowley gestured the bottle away — his glass was still half-full — and shrugged expansively. “Well. You’re not on the books any more, right? Neither of us are. Upstairs or Downstairs. Which is great and all, but — what do we do with ourselves now?” There, he’d managed ‘we’ on the second try, and Aziraphale hadn’t reacted at all, which was both good and bad. 

“I sell books,” Aziraphale said, automatically. 

“No you don’t.” 

“I open the shop,” Aziraphale said. “I have a _till_. The shop is a bookshop. I am a bookseller.” 

“A book-keeper, is what you are,” Crowley said, then reconsidered the word. “No, that means something about money, doesn’t it? You’re a book- _hoarder_. Not even a librarian, they let people borrow.” 

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes at Crowley and visibly went on the attack. “Well, what about you then? Although it’s hardly like all that much has changed on that front, has it? You’ve spent most of the last six millennia doing your best not to do anything at all for Hell.” 

“I’m a demon. I’m supposed to be lazy. And ’s a job in itself, isn’t it? Paperwork.” 

“Sending over-inflated memos?” 

“Works of art, my memos,” Crowley said. 

“And look what trouble they got you into.” Aziraphale paused, and frowned. “Are you getting bored, my dear?” 

He looked worried. Crowley hated it when Aziraphale looked worried. He liked it, though, when Aziraphale called him ‘my dear’. He hoarded words like that close to his chest. 

“Not so’s you’d notice. Just — you know. Thinking.” 

“A holiday!” Aziraphale said. “We could go away somewhere. On a holiday.” 

Crowley had two parallel reactions to that. One of them was a deep, all-encompassing relief at that ‘we’. That Aziraphale was thinking of the _two_ of them. The other was a strong disinclination to go to all the hassle of leaving London, where they were good and settled now, to go off -- where? Where hadn’t they already been, one time or another? 

“Eh, I dunno,” he said. “That sounds like a lot of effort.” 

“Travel is a lot easier than it used to be,” Aziraphale said, somewhat doubtfully. “No horses.” 

“Trust me, angel, airports are only barely any better.” 

“I see,” Aziraphale said. 

Crowley shrugged expansively. He’d been quite proud of Heathrow, but Luton was even more of an achievement. “I gather it does get better if you have an awful lot of money.” Or a miracle or two, but both of them were, without talking about it, trying to go a little easier on the miracles, just at the moment. “Anyway. Is there anywhere you actually fancy going? Is there anywhere left you haven’t been?” 

“Everywhere’s probably different now,” Aziraphale said, but he didn’t sound terribly convinced. Aziraphale was, when it came down to it, quite lazy. “If you don’t want to go anywhere, I understand the humans do a thing called a _staycation_. Or a sabbatical. I’m not quite sure of the difference.” 

“You’ve been on sabbatical for years, angel,” Crowley said. “Decades. You don’t sell books, you’ve been palming miracles off on me…” 

Aziraphale huffed gently at him. “I admit that it does sound rather more pleasant to just stay here than it does to go gallivanting around the place in search of — whatever it is one is supposed to get out of a holiday.” 

Crowley looked across at him, ensconced in his elderly armchair, wine in hand, surrounded by books and tchotchkes and all the detritus that Aziraphale had accumulated around him since he moved into the bookshop, and was hit square between the eyes with a realisation. 

Aziraphale was cosy here. The bookshop was cosy all round. Of course Aziraphale wanted to stay here. It was him-shaped. And to some extent, it was him-and-Crowley-shaped; Crowley might not always have been willing to admit it, but he felt comfortable here too, on this sofa that he’d sprawled across through so many nights of drinking too much and gently squabbling with Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale had a place of his own, where he liked to be. 

Crowley, on the other hand, did not. 

Was that what was eating at him? He’d never thought that it mattered, Before. His flat wasn’t somewhere he lived; it was somewhere he kept things. Hell knew where it was. They could find him there. So it couldn’t be _his place_ in the way that the bookshop was Aziraphale's. Nowhere could be. (Except, perhaps, for the bookshop; Heaven might know where that was, but Hell would never have looked for him there. But the bookshop wasn’t _his_ , however much time he might have spent there.) 

London was his, the whole of it; he knew London, its streets and its people and its ground-in history. He’d always loved the way the facelessness of the city mixed with the way that he could know it so closely and it could know him. But London was a big place, even for an immortal occult being. That was part of the appeal. 

Maybe it did matter, after all, that he didn’t have anywhere he wanted to be that was his. Maybe that was something he could fix. Fine, Hell still knew where the flat was, and they could still find him there, but Crowley was blessed if he was going to let that continue to control how he thought. 

And at least trying to do something about that might distract him from the pining. 

* * *

Walking back into the flat a few hours later felt like walking into a wall. He stopped dead in the hallway, and actually let himself look at the place. 

Fuck. 

When he first moved in, he’d thought of it like a stage set, somewhere to suit the sort of human he was pretending to be; and later, he’d mostly just left it as empty as possible. Didn’t seem much point in having things. He’d acquired a few bits and pieces along the way: some that were important to him; some that were important but he avoided thinking about as far as possible; and of course, there were the plants. 

He’d never tried to make it inviting. He’d never wanted to invite anyone over. Not even Aziraphale. He’d never let himself think about why he didn’t want Aziraphale over. He’d told himself things about _fashion_ and things about _safety_ (from Hell, from…yeah that was another thing not to think about). And every time he went around to the bookshop and compared his clean empty flat with A’s overstuffed cave of a back room, he told himself that what he was feeling was the smug pleasure of being more fashionable, and having far better taste than, Aziraphale. And not in any way the ache of knowing that he’d never get to show Aziraphale his flat and so it didn’t matter what he did with it anyway. 

He hadn’t dared let anyone else in. Even Aziraphale. Especially Aziraphale. 

It had been a while. A very long while, now. He was used to it. 

Or he had been used to it. 

Now, standing in his own hallway, all he could think about was Aziraphale stepping into the flat, after they got back from Tadfield, and his visible recoil from the bleak grey concrete everywhere. Crowley hadn’t let him in the bedroom, which was the only room that wasn’t all sharp angles, because Crowley liked comfort when he was having epic naps. He couldn’t pretend that it didn’t exist, because Aziraphale knew all about the naps; he just didn’t mention it, and Aziraphale was far too polite to bring it up. Crowley had gone to take a shower — miracling yourself clean wasn’t the same, and the hot water felt good — and come back to find Aziraphale sitting on the floor on a tidy pile of cushions he’d miracled up. He’d been smiling, and he’d explained to Crowley what he thought Agnes had meant, and they’d spent the rest of the night practising being each other. 

Aziraphale had disappeared the cushions when he left. Crowley really wished he hadn’t. 

He could have cushions, if he wanted. 

Couldn’t he? 

He swallowed. It was absurd to be nervous about cushions. Or wanting cushions. If he did want cushions, which he wasn’t saying he did, because… …because what? 

It wasn’t that he wanted Aziraphale to move in with him: it was ridiculous to think of Aziraphale anywhere else but the bookshop. Of course, over the years Crowley had seen him in plenty of other places, but the bookshop was special. It was the only place Aziraphale had ever truly settled, and it had shaped itself around him like his favourite coat. Crowley wouldn’t dream of trying to extricate Aziraphale from the bookshop. Plus, co-habiting sounded like a lot of hassle. He didn’t really see what the humans got out of it. 

What he wanted was for Aziraphale to be _comfortable_ in his flat. He wanted it to be welcoming. He wanted Aziraphale to be able to come round and have a drink here, to sit up all night talking nonsense together. He wanted Aziraphale to walk into the flat and feel the same way Crowley did in the bookshop, like it was a good place to be. Like he fitted into it. 

The trouble was, the whole thing was obviously a non-starter. An absurdity. Looking around, it was obvious that Aziraphale would never fit in here. And Crowley had no intention of adding to his existing angel-related issues by having something else that he wanted Aziraphale to do that he was never, in fact, going to do. At least the lust-related fantasies were, well, demonic. A bit. If he ignored the embarrassingly rose-tinted bits, something at which by now he had a lot of experience. But having somewhere that Aziraphale felt welcome, imagining Aziraphale coming round and snuggling into his sofa with that pleased smile of his, wine glass in hand…That was just embarrassing, that was all there was to it, and he had to put a stop to it. 

He went to bed, and slept for sixteen hours, and then for another sixteen after that, just for fun. 

When he woke up, he went to Heals on Tottenham Court Road and bought a sofa which was all three of expensive, designer, and genuinely comfortable to sit on. Then he waved his credit card at them until they stopped talking about “ten to twelve weeks” and started talking about “of course for you sir we can deliver it immediately”, which was pleasing, especially since it presumably meant that someone else was going to have to wait longer for _their_ sofa. 

On the way out he nearly very bought some cushions. 

Instead he visited a very fashionable garden centre that called itself a nursery and had a cafe with a Michelin star, and bought two plants that flowered, rather than just having beautiful shiny leaves. He consoled himself when he got them home by terrifying them even more thoroughly than usual. By the time he was done both already had another trembling flower apiece. 

This was, Crowley told himself firmly, all just a straight-up reaction to embarrassment. And that thing he’d thought, back at the bookshop, about giving Hell the finger by actually letting himself live in this place. But it was mostly just in case Aziraphale did wind up having to come round again, for some reason, so he wouldn’t have to sit on the floor and miracle up his own damn cushions. Crowley would have somewhere a guest could sit, which hadn’t even seemed relevant before. And most likely it still wasn’t. He had no intention of inviting any guests round, whether or not ‘guest’ included any angels in particular. It was all...just in case. 

A week later, he was mooching around the bookshop — again — when Aziraphale gently touched his shoulder to get his attention. Crowley jumped sky-high and then had to pretend that he hadn’t. 

Suddenly, he realised what the other part of his discomfort was about, and what the solution was. 

Clearly, it was all this touching that Aziraphale was doing. Not touching-touching, not the sort of thing that Crowley had occasionally thought of, and then either turned his human body off so as not to think any further, or turned it all the way on to enjoy the thoughts, privately, until he came swearing into his hand and determinedly didn’t feel guilty, because demons didn’t feel guilt about experiencing sins for pity’s sake and certainly not about experiencing sins about their angelic best friends who... 

Anyway. Not touching touching. Just — a hand on the arm. That sort of thing. Clearly Aziraphale didn’t mean anything by it, or he’d have done more than lean in over dinner and touch Crowley’s shoulder. It was all just very casual and friendly, and not the sort of thing that a demon of the world should be susceptible to in the slightest. But if Crowley reluctantly allowed himself to admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that perhaps he was just a smidge susceptible, it made sense that it might be making him feel a bit — weird. Also, it kept making him think about cushions again. Or possibly...pillows. 

Anyway. 

Clearly, the answer was to back off. 

The simplest solution would have been to tell Aziraphale that Crowley didn’t want him putting a hand on his arm or patting his shoulder, but the thought of having that conversation made Crowley want to chew off said arm. Aziraphale might be hurt, or even worse, he might guess what was going on, guess that Crowley wanted more than just hanging around a lot together and gentle arm-touches, and that would be an utter diabolical hairy disaster. He didn’t doubt that Aziraphale was _fond_ of him, that they were _friends_ , but that didn’t mean…it didn’t mean what Crowley wanted it to mean, was the point, and Crowley had no intention of testing that. 

Of course, the other thing about asking Aziraphale not to touch him any more was that Aziraphale would then stop touching him, and Crowley didn’t want that at all. 

So there had to be another answer. A way to back everything off a bit so that Crowley felt less peculiar all the time, but everything else was still fine. Crowley was wily and clever and subtle. He could most certainly find a solution to this problem. 

His solution, in the end, was to go for a nice long nap. Several weeks, he thought, would do it. That would be long enough for everything to wear off, and then he could go back to the bookshop and be back to normal. Admittedly, normal was six millennia of not-exactly-pining, but that would do. 

“I think I might hibernate for a bit,” he said to Aziraphale, in the bookshop one afternoon, putting his cunning plan into action. Aziraphale was fussing over a shelf of books, moving them around to no particular end that Crowley could identify. The back of his neck was soft and pink and Crowley badly wanted to stroke it, or possibly to bite it, which was at least more demonic. He found himself wondering where in his flat he might be able to fit a bookshelf, and blessed himself under his breath. 

“Hibernate?” Aziraphale turned around looking worried. “You don’t usually hibernate, do you, Crowley? I mean, not in this form? Are you feeling quite well?” He bustled over and put a hand on Crowley’s forehead. 

“Geddoff,” Crowley said, ducking away before he could do something drastic, like ask Aziraphale what he thought about wallpaper. Wallpaper was terrible. Crowley was not going to wallpaper his flat even if Aziraphale did like wallpaper, and also because he was going to put a stop to this. Aziraphale was still looking worried. 

“Sometimes I hibernate,” Crowley said, which wasn’t so much an outright lie as a distortion of the truth. He didn’t hibernate, but he did have really, really long naps, which was basically the same thing. 

“Yes, yes, the nineteenth century, but honestly Crowley, that wasn’t so much hibernation as _sulking_ , wasn’t it?” 

Crowley narrowed his eyes. Aziraphale smiled sunnily at him. 

“It’s been a rough year. Maybe I just need a bit of downtime,” Crowley said instead. “Like you were saying. A sabbatical. A staycation. But with more sleep, because I like sleep.” It was possibly he was over-egging this a bit. 

Aziraphale looked — bereft, almost, but that was absurd. “Well. If you really think so, my dear. But you’re not going right now, are you? I was thinking of dinner. There’s a lovely new Vietnamese place round the corner, I had their pho the other day, just to test it out, you understand, and it was very encouraging. Well worth further investigation…” 

Crowley went out to dinner, obviously. After dinner, he walked Aziraphale back to the bookshop, and managed to resist Aziraphale’s invitation to come in for “just a small glass of whisky”. He bade Aziraphale goodbye on the doorstep, but Aziraphale still managed to keep talking for a good ten minutes, looking almost anxious every time his eyes met Crowley’s, until he had finally touched Crowley’s arm three times -- not that Crowley was counting -- and said goodbye four times, after which he finally took himself off inside. Crowley went home and told himself that he was going to stay here until he stopped thinking about books, and cushions, and Aziraphale curling up next to him in his big, soft bed, surrounded by both of their wings, black and white together, feathers touching at the edges… 

It was going to be a long not-hibernation. 

* * *

Crowley lasted a whole week, and he absolutely would have lasted longer, except that Aziraphale showed up at the flat on day eight. 

Pointlessly, Crowley told himself not to open the door, but he was already there, opening it. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry to disturb you. I rather thought I’d just sneak in, so as not to waken you.” 

“You rang the _doorbell_ , angel.” 

“Well, I thought if you were hibernating it wouldn’t wake you and if you weren’t it wouldn’t matter.” Aziraphale was trying to crowd in over the threshold, which wasn’t terribly Aziraphale behaviour. 

“Why are you _here_?” Crowley asked, but it was too late, he’d already backed off and let Aziraphale in past him. 

“Oh look, a bookcase!” Aziraphale said, happily. “Are you going to take up reading, Crowley? Because you know, I’d be delighted to recommend you some books.” 

“Recommend away,” Crowley said. “That way I’ll know what I should definitely not be reading if I were taking up reading, which I’m not.” 

A frown creased Aziraphale’s forehead. “Then what’s the bookshelf for?” 

“Putting things on,” Crowley said, sounding like an absolute idiot who had failed to think through the implications of his statements, which was unsurprising, because that was, in fact, what he was. 

The trouble was, the part of his brain that was supposed to deal with that sort of thing was awash with happiness over Aziraphale approving of the bookshelf, approving of... 

A week definitely hadn’t been long enough. Several weeks might not have been long enough. It was entirely possible that there was no ‘long enough’ any more. 

Crowley stood in the centre of the flat in his black silk dressing gown, going hot and cold by turns as Aziraphale admired his bookshelf, and his sofa, and the flowers on the plants. 

It wasn’t even _finished_ yet. This was terrible in so many different directions at once, and the worst thing in a whole panoply of worst things was that he mostly just really wanted to sit down on the sofa — the comfy sofa! He had a _comfy sofa_ , what was his life _coming_ to — and let Aziraphale stroke his hair. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, suddenly stopping dead. “Crowley.” His tone sounded completely different now. Worried? Sympathetic? Something? “Crowley. My dear. You’ve finally started making a home for yourself.” 

“No,” croaked Crowley, which was the only way he could think of to answer that question. “Demons don’t…no.” 

“Oh, Crowley, are you sure? I mean, I understand why you never did before, but the urge to retreat into your own space, now that we’re _here_ properly, on Earth I mean, and it would explain so much…obviously it’s not actually hibernation…maybe you just aren’t paying enough attention to your own needs…” Aziraphale sounded worried, and maybe just a little upset, and Crowley really was not dealing with any of this well. He waved a hand, with no very clear idea of what he wanted to convey. 

“I’ll…I’m sorry, Crowley, I didn’t mean to interfere. I’ll just…I should leave you alone. To make…you should get to have some time to yourself, shouldn’t you? I’m sorry.” 

“Hang on,” Crowley said. “What did you come over for in the first place?” 

But Aziraphale had gone. 

“I have no idea what just happened,” Crowley said out loud to the empty room. 

And Aziraphale hadn’t touched him. He scowled, and corrected the thought. _At least_ Aziraphale hadn’t touched him. Surely that would have set the whole resetting process back to the beginning. 

Ugh. He was going back to bed. 

* * *

Two days later, Aziraphale showed up on the doorstep again. He had a bag full of books, which Crowley had pretty much expected would happen, now Aziraphale knew he had a bookshelf; and a large John Lewis bag, which was more surprising. 

It turned out to contain a lamp, with leaves on it. 

“As a housewarming present,” Aziraphale explained, standing in the middle of the living room looking slightly uncomfortable. 

Crowley squinted at him. “You do know that I moved into this flat when they built it, right? Like, over a hundred years ago. It’s probably past the housewarming stage.” 

“Mm, yes, but.” Aziraphale looked even more uncomfortable. “I mean, you haven’t really lived in it, before, have you? It didn’t feel that way, when I was here after the whole apocalypse business. I thought, if you’re trying to make it more comfortable now, then…well, it’s not like a human having a new flat, of course it’s not, but it’s, um. I thought, maybe it’s a bit like it, and so maybe I…” He ran out of words, and instead waved the lamp, as if Crowley might not have seen it properly the first time. 

Crowley felt his eyelid twitch, and wished that he wore sunglasses when at home. 

“‘M not making anything _comfortable_ ,” he said, instead. 

“Why not?” Aziraphale asked, obstinate. 

“Demon, remember.” 

“I thought you said we were on our own side now,” Aziraphale said, which Crowley felt was uncalled for and definitely not playing fair. He had his warrior-of-the-Lord expression on, except a bit less smite-y and a bit more stubborn. “You’re allowed to be comfortable. _Our side_ is definitely allowed to be comfortable. I know you’ve never been very good before at comfortable, or cosy,” Crowley twitched, and Aziraphale grimaced but carried on, “but, I mean, if you’re feeling that you need something different now…” He looked very earnest, and slightly sad. “You deserve to be comfortable, Crowley. You deserve to find that for yourself. I just…if I can help, at all.” 

Crowley resisted the urge to bang his head against something; and also the urge to explain, in detail, possibly by throwing himself at Aziraphale and hoping the angel caught him, exactly how Aziraphale could help. That wasn’t what Aziraphale meant. 

“Thanks for the lamp,” he said, instead, and took it from Aziraphale’s hands. He put it on the middle shelf of the bookshelf, where it fit perfectly and then turned itself on, because that was what he wanted of it, and they both stood there in silence for a moment, looking at it. 

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s face brightened again, and he delved back into the John Lewis bag. “And I brought some wine. We usually drink in my place. I thought, maybe, it would be nice to have a drink here. Now you have this nice sofa.” 

Crowley turned around and looked at the sofa. Another couple of cushions had materialised on it. He looked suspiciously at Aziraphale, who was still holding the wine and beaming at him, but the cushions were a nice tasteful black with silver curlicues embroidered on one corner, rather than, say, tartan, making it more than likely that Crowley had now progressed to the stage of manifesting soft furnishings without even _meaning_ to, which was, which was… 

“Wine,” he agreed. “Excellent idea.” 

“Not actually from John Lewis, you understand,” Aziraphale said. “The lamp, yes. The wine, no.” 

“Glad to hear it,” Crowley said, and summoned a couple of glasses for them.

* * *

The bottle of wine had, to no one’s surprise, turned into a couple of bottles of wine. 

The not-touching-at-all plan wasn’t working. Crowley was slouched against one end of the sofa, legs stretched out along the cushions, and Aziraphale was sitting neatly at the other end. Crowley’s toes had, wholly against his own conscious intent, made their way under Aziraphale’s leg, and Aziraphale had, apparently also without conscious intent, put a hand across Crowley’s ankles. And now there was no way in the world that Crowley was capable of moving. 

“It is important to look after yourself,” Aziraphale said, again, out of the blue. 

“I look after myself fine,” Crowley said, automatically. 

“Mm,” Aziraphale said, which was as good as him waving a neon sign saying ‘I disagree with you but I’m too polite to say so out loud’. Then he took another slug of wine and said, “No, you don’t.” 

“I do,” Crowley insisted. “Look. I’ve got a _sofa_ now. How about that.” 

“That’s rather my point,” Aziraphale said. “All these years, all these centuries, and only now you’re allowing yourself some comfort?” 

Crowley shrugged. “Eh. Never felt like there was much point before.” He realised, through the slight haze occasioned by the booze, that perhaps this was a dangerous turn to the conversation. 

“There’s always a point,” Aziraphale insisted. “We are all part of the ineffable plan, we are all Her creatures, and we should treat ourselves accordingly.” 

“She chucked me out,” Crowley said. “If you recall.” This was gloomy territory, and Aziraphale seemed to realise it, a series of expressions flitting across his mobile face that Crowley was far too plastered to follow. 

“Well. I don’t think that means…” He stumbled to a stop, and tried again. “I suppose, really, it’s more that I’m wondering what it is that has changed? Why now?” 

“They’re not looking any more, are they?” Crowley gestured Downstairs. 

“You thought they wouldn’t want you to have…pleasant things?” Aziraphale asked. 

“Well, it’s not something your lot particularly approve of either, is it? Just for different reasons.” Crowley considered the matter. “Not that it ever actually stopped you.” 

Aziraphale pressed his lips together. “Well, I never thought that all Gabriel’s fussing about _gross matter_ made much sense. If I _have_ this human body, and it finds certain things enjoyable, then why shouldn’t I give it those pleasures?” 

Crowley was immediately visited with a lot of thoughts about pleasures that Aziraphale might find himself willing to give his body in the future, preferably with Crowley; then about pleasures that Aziraphale might have given his body in the past, without Crowley. He took another large slug of wine. 

“Well,” he said, after swallowing it. “My feeling was, best not give them anything to get a handle on.” 

“But now they’re not looking,” Aziraphale prompted. 

“You told them to leave me alone,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale beamed at him. “I mean,” he added, “I don’t know how long it’ll last. But in the meantime, if I’m not on their side,” he gestured Downstairs, “and I’m still not on the other side,” he gestured Upstairs, “maybe I feel like there’s more point in making myself more comfortable right here on this side.” 

“On our side,” Aziraphale said. 

He sounded happy. Crowley glanced over at him, and he was smiling again, the corners of his mouth soft, looking down at his lap, the soft light glowing off his profile. Crowley bit his tongue, hard. He was in grave danger of giving the whole game away, and then Aziraphale would frown, and cough, and say well, my dear..., and he couldn’t deal with that right now. Or ever. 

“Well, I do very much approve,” Aziraphale said. “It’s important to have somewhere you feel safe. Somewhere that’s yours. And Crowley, you deserve that, you really do.” He was obviously working up to something, but Crowley wasn’t sure what. “But I would really…I would like to…” 

He was going to offer to help again, wasn’t he? Crowley didn’t think he could bear that. 

“You’ve got a perfectly good home of your own,” Crowley said. “No need to worry about mine. I’m fine.” 

Aziraphale was stroking Crowley’s ankle, just slightly. He couldn’t possibly be aware that he was doing it. 

“I’m so glad you like the bookshop,” he said. 

“’S lovely,” Crowley said, without much input from his brain. “Any angel should be proud of it.” 

“It’s important to be comfortable,” Aziraphale said, again. He sounded distracted. His thumb had slid slightly higher up Crowley’s ankle, and was stroking at the edge of the scaly part that ran up the back of Crowley’s leg. Crowley was feeling quite distracted, too. “Not that any other angel would think that, I suppose you’re right there.” 

“Sod ‘em,” Crowley said. “I say it’s good. Spent many a pleasant evening in there, haven’t we?” He picked up the bottle and waved it at Aziraphale. Anything to keep him from noticing what he was doing with his thumb, which Crowley most definitely wanted him to keep doing for as long as possible. “Top up?”  
“I’m glad you like it,” Aziraphale said again, ignoring the offer of the wine. He wrapped his hand all the way around Crowley’s ankle. That couldn’t possibly be an accident. What…? “Because in all truth, my dear, a large part of it was, is…has always been for your benefit.” 

Crowley dropped the wine bottle. 

Aziraphale gestured absently, a casual miracle, and it landed upright. 

“I mean,” he went on, as if now he’d started he didn’t dare let himself stop, “I mean. I suppose it doesn’t matter now, in that you are, you have, your own comfort, here. For yourself. Which is good! It’s good. But. I wanted you to know how much you, uh. Mean to me.” He grimaced. “I confess I always assumed it was painfully obvious and you were just letting me down gently…” 

“What?” Crowley dimly felt that he ought to be managing something slightly more coherent, as a response, than ‘what’, but nothing was coming to mind at the moment. He had a faint sensation of buzzing in his ears. 

“I just want you to be happy, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, with great and apparent sincerity that tied a huge knot somewhere in the middle of Crowley’s sternum. 

He could still crawl out of this, if he wanted to. He didn’t have to say anything. He could still… 

Of course he could still escape. He could stay quiet, could shrug and say that of course he was happy, top up Aziraphale’s glass, avoid committing himself to anything. Aziraphale would let that happen. 

The thing was, Crowley didn’t want to escape any more. He didn’t want to avoid Aziraphale, or whatever it was that was happening here. Aziraphale had just told him that he’d been trying to make Crowley happy, to make him comfortable, all this time. He’d said it out loud. Crowley was blessed if he was going to leave Aziraphale on his own out there, _saying things_ like that. 

“I’m happy,” he said, his stomach flipping over like he was plunging into deep water, “when I’m around you.” 

Aziraphale looked over at him, his changeable eyes wide, his lips slightly parted. “You — but, I mean, you haven’t, I didn’t...I know we’re friends, but you’ve never said...” 

“Of course I haven’t. You’re an angel. Hardly going to just up and tell you that some demon’s…” Crowley swallowed down ‘pining after you’. He still had some standards. Just about. 

“But I’m your angel,” Aziraphale said, simply, and that was it. Crowley absolutely couldn’t cope with this any longer. 

He sat abruptly upright, leant forwards over his own folded-up knees, and kissed Aziraphale.

* * *

Crowley had always thought, when he’d let himself think about this, that Aziraphale would be shocked for a moment, might be a little tentative. Might need persuading, if not outright tempting. He’d envisaged the angel taking his time to relax into it, and imagined how he might encourage that process along a little faster. 

Aziraphale, in real life, wasn’t shocked in the slightest. He didn’t need any persuasion at all. He kissed back, immediately, his hand slipping around the back of Crowley’s neck, licking into Crowley’s mouth as if he’d spent just as much time thinking about this as Crowley had, over the years. 

That was a _very_ inspiring thought. Crowley felt himself make a noise at the back of his throat, and Aziraphale respond with a noise of his own and a deepening of the kiss. 

Crowley’s knees were getting in his way. He scrambled them underneath him and threw himself onto Aziraphale’s lap, without stopping kissing him. He was absolutely going to think of this as a suave and sophisticated move, rather than a hopeless tangle of limbs; not that it mattered either way, because now he was straddling Aziraphale and grinding down onto him, and that was a very positive development indeed. 

He could feel Aziraphale hard already against him, and even through two layers of trousers, every nerve in his body sparked at once. 

“Oh _fuck_ , Crowley.” Aziraphale thrust up against him, his head falling back against the sofa, and Crowley bent down to kiss and nip his neck, shaking with arousal. Aziraphale moaned as Crowley’s teeth grazed his jaw. 

“ _Oh, fuck_ , you said? Is that a suggestion?” he murmured into Aziraphale’s ear, before curling his tongue around Aziraphale’s earlobe and feeling Aziraphale shudder underneath him. “Or a request?” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said hoarsely. “Both. _Please_ , Crowley. Fuck me.” 

Bloody hell. He really did need to recalibrate his expectations about Aziraphale as the blushing flower, didn’t he? 

Something occurred to him, and he sat back a little, reluctantly taking his mouth away from where he was kissing under Aziraphale’s jaw. “Are you…? I mean, have you…Is this…?” 

“Oh, a few times over the centuries,” Aziraphale said, correctly divining what he was trying to ask. “Not very often, but from time to time, when there was someone I was fond of and it seemed that I wouldn’t be, you know. Taking advantage.” 

“Wilde!” Crowley said. “I knew it.” 

“You always have had a bit of a thing about dear Oscar, Crowley. Have you really been jealous all this time?” Crowley, torn between the fact that jealousy, as a sin, ought to be something he was keen to admit to, and the fact that he felt distinctly sheepish about actually admitting to it in this instance, wrinkled his nose up and muttered, “maybe a bit. Should I be?” 

“I would never kiss and tell,” Aziraphale gave him an angelic smile. Crowley bent down again and nipped hard at his neck in retaliation, then felt guilty and sucked at the spot instead. “Ooh. Yes please.” He was breathing faster again. “Oh, but. What about you, darling?” 

Crowley shrugged. “Occasionally for work. Few times for fun. Didn’t seem worth it all that often, to be honest.” 

“Leonardo,” Aziraphale said immediately. 

“And you’ve always had a thing about him,” Crowley said. 

“Well?” 

“I would never kiss and tell,” Crowley said piously. “Not unless it was going to get you off, anyway.” 

Aziraphale smirked at him. “Maybe we can tell stories another time. Right now, I was rather hoping to have _all_ of your attention, I have to admit…” 

“You do, angel,” Crowley said, fervently. “You definitely do.” 

He reached down to slide his fingers under the waistband of Aziraphale’s trousers, feeling the dusting of hair that led downwards, the back of his knuckle brushing the velvet smoothness of the head of Aziraphale’s hard cock “I seem to recall you were suggesting I could fuck you.” Just saying it, his desire roared back up again. 

Aziraphale curled his fingers back around Crowley’s neck and kissed him again, hard and wet and deep. By the time he pulled back again, Crowley could feel his heart going, and he chased after Aziraphale’s mouth with a whine. “That’s one possibility, yes. Quite an appealing one, true. But there are a great many other available options. And I would rather like to do all of them, in due course.” 

“ _Aziraphale_ ,” Crowley said, desire licking through him like flame. He curled forwards, resting his forehead onto Aziraphale’s shoulder, grinding his cock down against Aziraphale’s again as he slid his hand around to the small of Aziraphale’s back. His whole pelvis tingled with arousal, spiking at the points of contact between them. 

“What I would like to know,” Aziraphale continued, his hands stroking down Crowley’s back, “is what you want.” 

“Anything,” Crowley said. “Whatever you want.” His nose was in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck, taking great lungfuls of his scent, and he was all at once entirely overwhelmed with everything that was suddenly on offer to him. 

Aziraphale pushed his fingers up into Crowley’s hair, and Crowley made a small helpless noise, leaning back into them. “That wasn’t what I asked, though. I asked what you want.” 

That was definitely a bit much to deal with. Crowley elected to handle this via the method he felt he was best at, viz, distraction. He wriggled backwards just a little, and started working at Aziraphale’s trouser buttons. 

Aziraphale’s hands came away from Crowley’s hair, and went down to still Crowley’s hands. Crowley, panicking slightly, stopped immediately. “Shit, angel, I’m sorry, I…” 

“It’s not that,” Aziraphale said gently, and one hand came up to tip Crowley’s head up, so they were looking into one another’s eyes. Aziraphale’s eyes were blue-grey, and wide, and his pupils were huge. “I want you so very badly, Crowley. I have done for ages. But I know what you’re doing, and it would absolutely work, and I don’t want it to. I don’t want you to distract me. I want you to tell me what you want. I want to give you that.” 

Crowley opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. He was achingly hard, and at the same time, terrified. 

“What do you want, darling?” 

Crowley swallowed. “To touch you,” he managed to say. “To — your skin, angel, I want to feel your skin. A-and…” he hesitated, but Aziraphale was still listening, still looking at him with those beautiful eyes, seeing straight into Crowley, “your hands. On me. Please.” 

Aziraphale took a long, shuddering breath. He let go of Crowley’s hands and slid his hand up under Crowley’s T-shirt, sliding up to his ribcage, curling around his side; his other hand slid back into Crowley’s hair again. Aziraphale’s hands were cool, just like Crowley had always imagined they would be, his touch soothing on Crowley’s skin while it ramped up his desire. His cock twitched as Aziraphale dragged his nails across his chest. Crowley made an incoherent noise, and abandoned Aziraphale’s trouser buttons in favour of getting his waistcoat and shirt undone. He finally got his hands onto Aziraphale’s expanse of creamy white skin, the angel’s beautiful stomach and his broad chest, and thrilled at the sound of Aziraphale’s groan. Crowley leant in to kiss him, and Aziraphale’s hand tightened on his hair, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Crowley ran his thumbs over Aziraphale’s nipples, and Aziraphale arched up into it, then experimentally tried doing the same thing to Crowley. 

“Nah, mine aren’t all that,” Crowley said. “Uh. Pulling my hair, though, that…” 

Aziraphale tugged at it a bit harder, and Crowley whined, which ought to have been more embarrassing than it was, except he was too busy kissing Aziraphale again, plastering himself up against Aziraphale’s chest, every inch of his skin singing. 

“You are so beautiful,” Aziraphale breathed, his face open and adoring. “What do you want, my darling?” 

Crowley, still sprawled across Aziraphale’s lap, pushed down against him again, and Aziraphale rolled his hips upwards, then stilled them. “Words, Crowley. Tell me.” 

Ideas were crowding through Crowley’s head, all the things he’d ever thought of doing to Aziraphale, with Aziraphale, of Aziraphale doing to him...Aziraphale watched him patiently, one of his hands resting on Crowley’s hip. 

“Touch me,” Crowley said, hoarsely. 

“Touch you where, darling?” Aziraphale had a tiny little smile on his lips. 

“Bastard,” Crowley said. “T-touch — touch my cock.” It felt dangerous to say it, to ask aloud, but Aziraphale just leant forwards to kiss him, sweetly, and then he wriggled his hand in between them. His clever fingers were undoing Crowley’s jeans, and then they were wrapping around Crowley’s cock, pulling it out, his thumb smearing pre-come over the tip, and every nerve in Crowley’s body lit up at once. Aziraphale’s hand was cool on his heated skin, and Crowley found himself sobbing into Aziraphale’s mouth, hips jerking into his hand. 

“Like this?” Aziraphale breathed. 

“God — Satan — _Somebody_ , yes, like that. Ohhh fuck.” He was coming, already, too desperate to hold on any longer, and arguably that too should have been embarrassing, except that Aziraphale was biting at Crowley’s lip and moaning into his mouth, telling him how beautiful, how gorgeous he was. 

At least his body, whilst human-ish, didn’t need to be bound by the same limitations as a regular human’s was. 

“What do you want?” he asked Aziraphale, once he had his breath back a bit. He ran his hand over Aziraphale’s cock, still hard in his trousers. “Do you…?” 

“Very much,” Aziraphale said. He was breathing hard, chest pink. “But I still haven’t finished with what you want, yet. Do you want to be inside me? Or me inside you? Do you want me to suck you?” 

Crowley was getting hard again already. “Angel, fuck, you can’t just say…” 

“I can,” Aziraphale said. “I absolutely can. I have spent a _long_ time not saying things to you that I should have said long ago. I refuse to be ashamed or embarrassed by anything else I want of you. I can’t make you feel the same way, but if there is any way I can help make it so…” 

Crowley swallowed past the strange lump that had just appeared in his throat. “Aziraphale. I love you.” 

After so long without saying it, he couldn’t believe how easy it was to say here and now. 

“ _Crowley_. Oh.” There was a shine in Aziraphale’s eyes. 

“Hey, hey. Angel. Don’t cry.” 

Aziraphale was smiling at him again, tremulous but beautiful. “It’s not a bad thing. I love you so very much, darling. That’s all.” 

Crowley took Aziraphale’s head between his hands, pushing his fingers into Aziraphale’s beautiful fair curls, and kissed him, as slow and sweet as he could, tongue licking into Aziraphale’s mouth, nibbling on his lower lip, and felt Aziraphale tremble beneath him. He pulled away a little. 

“I love you,” he said again. “And I have wanted to suck your cock for, oh, a good couple of thousand years now, so, if you don’t mind…” 

“ _Please_ ,” Aziraphale said, voice cracking, and Crowley slid backwards off his lap and went to his knees between Aziraphale’s legs, miracling Aziraphale’s trousers and underwear away rather than bother with the complicated human way, given how much his hands were shaking. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale breathed as Crowley took his cock into his mouth, then, “ _Fuck_ ,” as Crowley slid right down to the base, serpent-tongue flickering along the thick vein along its length. 

Crowley’s world shrank down to the feel of Aziraphale’s cock filling his mouth, Aziraphale’s scent suffusing his nostrils, Aziraphale’s hands clenching in his hair. He backed off to run his tongue around the head, and heard Aziraphale moan, then slid slowly and luxuriously all the way back down again, until it bumped against the back of his throat. His nose pressed into the white hair at Aziraphale’s groin, and he smelt the intoxicating musk of the angel’s arousal. He curled his tongue up again around Aziraphale’s cock, slid backwards and forwards along it, until, timeless moments later, he felt Aziraphale come, panting Crowley’s name. He stayed down there for a little longer, sucking more gently now, until he heard Aziraphale say, “Come back up here,” tugging at his shoulders. Crowley slithered onto the sofa next to him, feeling extremely smug at the flushed look on Aziraphale’s face, and then at the passion with which Aziraphale kissed him. 

“You must have a bed in here,” Aziraphale said. 

“Mm,” Crowley said, gesturing lazily in the general direction of the bedroom. “Too far to walk though.” 

“I’d do it, but I don’t know where we’re going,” Aziraphale said, and looked expectantly at Crowley until he got the message and snapped his fingers, miracling them both through to the bed. He was taken slightly by surprise when Aziraphale rolled him straight over onto his back and sat up, leaning over him. 

“Was that all you had in mind?” he asked. “Because…” He ran his free hand over Crowley’s cock. 

“Had all sorts of things in mind,” Crowley promised him, his breath catching. “Anything you want, angel.” 

“Oh no,” Aziraphale said. “You’re the one who’s going to tell me what you want. Remember?” 

“I wanted your cock in my mouth, and I got that,” Crowley said, stretching out in a leisurely sort of way. 

“I feel oddly certain that you’ve got more ideas than that,” Aziraphale said. He stroked Crowley’s cock again gently, then curled his fingers around it and pulled it once or twice, a little harder. The burn was slower this time around, less of an edge; Crowley could appreciate the slow drag of Aziraphale’s fingers in a way that he had been too overwhelmed to the first time Aziraphale touched him. He stopped, and Crowley moaned. 

“Angel. Please.” 

“Please what?” Aziraphale wore that slight smile again. 

Crowley was lost in sensation, and the overwhelming feeling of Aziraphale, here, now, his scent surrounding Crowley. Words seemed deeply complicated when all he wanted was Aziraphale’s skin against his, Aziraphale’s hands and body, and... 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale sounded anxious. 

Crowley swallowed. “I love you,” he said again, clinging to that. Aziraphale’s worried frown smoothed away, and he leant down to feather kisses across Crowley’s cheekbones. It was almost too much. 

“I want to look after you, darling,” Aziraphale said, and nuzzled under the curve of his jaw. 

“Fuck me,” Crowley said, managing to find the words at last. “Please.” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said with conviction. 

He ran a hand down Crowley’s chest, down to his cock, and back along his perineum. Crowley shivered. 

“Hang on, let me…” he said — it was convenient, after all, to have a body that did what you want it to even when human bodies shouldn’t — and was surprised when Aziraphale grabbed his hand. 

“No,” Aziraphale said firmly. 

“What? I _want_ you, angel.” 

“And l want you. But I don’t see the need to rush through this, even if we do have shortcuts available to us.” He ran a finger across Crowley’s hole, and Crowley shivered. “I want to look after you, darling. Let me make this good for you.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Crowley said, weakly, and did as he was told. 

Really, he should have expected that Aziraphale would take his time with this the same way he did with a six-course dinner; should have expected the slow drawn-out experience of Aziraphale sliding cool fingers into him, until Crowley was stretched boneless across the sheets, hips jerking upwards, panting even though he didn’t truly need the oxygen. His body definitely thought he did. 

“Tell me, darling,” Aziraphale crooned gently, pressing two fingers up into him, finding that little knot of nerves. 

“More,” Crowley managed to say. “Please. More.” 

“More what, darling. Tell me.” 

“More _fingers_ , or your cock, something, more, please.” 

“Mmm,” Aziraphale hummed, and slid another finger into him, twisting his hand as he did so. Crowley sobbed, pushing down onto Aziraphale’s hand. “Tell me,” he said again, pulling his fingers out and then back in again, inexorable. “Tell me what you want, darling.” 

Crowley was too far gone now to second-guess himself, too far gone to think around his words, to find other ways of saying what he wanted. “I want you, angel. Your cock. Fuck me. Please. _Please_.” 

“I’ve wanted you for _so long_ ,” Aziraphale breathed, and then he was poised over Crowley, and Crowley was already wrapping his legs around Aziraphale’s hips, and his angel was sliding into him, both of them gasping aloud at the feel of it. 

“Fuck me,” Crowley said again, and Aziraphale did, sliding slowly and smoothly halfway out then back in again. “ _Harder_ , angel. More. Please.” 

“Anything,” Aziraphale breathed into Crowley’s ear. “Anything, darling.” 

He was an angel of his word. Crowley had always known that Aziraphale was strong, but it turned out that his furtive thoughts of the angel pounding him through the mattress weren’t a patch on the real thing. Aziraphale’s broad shoulders were like smooth silk under his clutching hands as Aziraphale drove his cock deep into Crowley. He felt exquisitely full as Aziraphale bottomed out, his whole body sparking with pleasure. Aziraphale slid out again smoothly, then back in, harder, again and again until Crowley’s entire world narrowed down to the feeling of Aziraphale in him and around him, his nose full of the scent of Aziraphale and desire, every nerve ending singing. 

He came, finally, fingernails digging into Aziraphale’s back, shaking apart around Aziraphale buried to the hilt inside him. 

“Fuck,” Aziraphale gasped into his shoulder as Crowley clenched around him, and Crowley felt him coming too. 

* * *

“This sort of staycation I could quite possibly get behind,” Crowley said, very lazily, some time later. He’d dozed off for a bit, and woken to find himself curled into Aziraphale’s hip, a blanket thrown over both of them. Aziraphale was sitting up against the headboard, book in one hand and the other playing with Crowley’s hair. Crowley felt a great sense of satisfaction about the whole situation, and a serious disinclination to leave. 

“The sort where we stay in bed a lot, you mean?” Aziraphale asked. He looked away from his book to smile down at Crowley. 

“There’s loads of places that deliver food to here, you know,” Crowley said. “There’s one I found the other day does ice cream cocktails.” He’d been saving that for an appropriate occasion; this felt like it might be one. 

Aziraphale’s eyes went wide. “Really?” 

Crowley stretched out in bed, and relished the feeling of Aziraphale’s gorgeous thighs stretched out next to him. “Lots of options. No need to go anywhere at all. Or get dressed.” The more he thought about it, the better of an idea it seemed. 

“I suppose, if I’m on holiday, I needn’t open the bookshop,” Aziraphale mused. 

“Not ‘til you feel like it again,” Crowley agreed. Eventually, Aziraphale would feel like it again, but they could probably get through quite a few ice cream cocktails delivered to the door before that. 

“While you’re redecorating, you know, you could use a bookcase next to the bed,” Aziraphale noted. 

“I don’t read,” Crowley said automatically. 

“Yes darling, but I do.” Aziraphale smiled sunnily at him. 

Crowley, somehow, hadn’t thought that far; hadn’t thought beyond Aziraphale here in his flat and Aziraphale maybe spending a while longer in his flat eating the finest takeout Crowley’s phone could provide, to Aziraphale being here _again_. More often. Regularly even. In Crowley’s home. Somewhere that was Crowley’s own; somewhere he, finally, felt comfortable in. And apparently Aziraphale did too. 

“You do, don’t you,” he said, with no small amount of wonder. “Right you are then. One bookcase, coming right up. Anything else you need, while I’m at it?” 

“Not really, darling,” Aziraphale said. He put his book down and wriggled down in the bed, coming to rest with his face next to Crowley’s. “This is a very comfortable bed, you know. And you’re right here in it. I think that will do nicely.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as ever to [LauraShapiro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraShapiro) for encouragement, enthusiasm, and excellent beta-ing. <3 Also to the GOBB mods/admins for running the Big Bang. 
> 
> I am so grateful for and enthusiastic about the gorgeous art that [Kya](https://xofemeraldstars.tumblr.com/) has done for this fic! Absolutely beautiful. Their podfic should also be linked here: go listen! It's been wholly delightful to work with them.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] The Mortifying Ordeal of Soft Furnishings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22417420) by [ofEmeraldStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofEmeraldStars/pseuds/ofEmeraldStars)




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